Outdoor Fun Festival

Come out and join the CNI and its partnering organizations for an Outdoor Fun Festival in Frank Wilson Park! We will have horses, face painting, moon bounces, slides, and many organizations from around the Martinsville-Henry County Area. The event will be in Frank Wilson Park, October 10 from 10:00am to 5pm!

Take A Child Outside Week

Take A Child Outside (TACO) week is a national week that focuses on breaking down the barriers that prevent children from going outside. From September 24-30 organizations around the United States who are participating will be providing their local area outdoor programs for their community. CNI will be offering the following programs
August 25: Screen on the Green at 7:00pm at Frank Wilson Park
August 26: National Public Lands Day, Wilson Park Clean up from 10-noon
August 26: Geocaching in Frank Wilson Park
August 26: Special Saturdays program from 10-noon in Frank Wilson Park

Next Screen on the Green

Our next Screen on the Green will be this Friday September 25, 2009 at 7:00pm! Activities will start at 7:00pm and the movie will begin at 8:00pm. This event is part of the national Take A Child Outside week. See the above to read more about what will be taking place for TACO week.

Grassroots Gathering

CNI attended the Grassroots Conference at Keystone Colorado September 9 through the 11. It was a wonderful conference. Beautiful area and wonder people. There are many organizations around the United States that are active in getting children outdoors. It was very reassuring that we had so much support and that all the organizations support one another in the movement. CNI made a lot of connections with other organizations during this conference so be on the look out for unique and more diverse events and activities coming soon.

Screen on the Green!

August 28 CNI partnered with Martinsville Leisure Services to present a Screen on the Green.
Activities started at 7:00pm and the movie began at 8:00pm. We had about 20 people in attendance on this rainy Friday night! Movie Town donated about five pounds of popcorn! We also had animal crackers, drinks, face painting, bubble making, leaf rubbings, leaf identification, insect discovery and identification at this event as well. We watched the movie, “Bears,” from the National Wildlife Federation to support National Parks Awareness month. What a way to spend a Friday night!

Wild About Early Learners Traning

CNI worked with DGIF to arrange a training for educators in the Project Wild curriculum "Wild About Early Learners." This curriculum provides outdoor activities for children ages pre-k to third grade to participate in. During this training we had a great representation from VMNH and USACE at Philpott Dam. It was very informative and provided us with great resources and tools that will enable us to use their “Wild About Early Learners” curriculum.

Tree Inventory

CNI conducted a tree inventory training July 28 and August 13 for interested participants. The tree inventory is going well. We can't wait to get the children out there identifying trees. Spread the word to people who you feel would be interested in participating in the tree inventory our next ones are September 18 and October 23 at 4:00pm. We meet at J. Frank Wilson Park in the log shelter. For more information or to see the blogged trees go to http://wilsonparktreesurvey.blogspot.com/

Earth Force Update

The following are brief definitions of each group to prevent confusion

Earth Force Group consists of the educators who were trained in the Earth Force Curriculum. They act as facilitators of each Earth Force team because Earth Force projects are solely student run. The facilitators supervise the students and guide them through each part of the curriculum.

Earth Force Team consists of the students who are taking part in the Earth Force program. They are using the scientific method to identify issues in their community and proceed to address them. Go to www.earthforce.org if you would like to learn more about the curriculum and see success stories.

The first Earth Force Team in the Martinsville-Henry county area is based out of the Virginia Museum of Natural History and supervised by Evalyn Chapman and myself. We placed an announcement of the formation of an Earth Force team in the newspaper and we received five responses. Coincidentally, all five students come from the same high school in Henry County. We have met with them three times and they are currently observing the area of Bassett to find an issue they are passionate about and that they would like to address. We will keep you posted.

The Earth Force Group has met twice and are currently forming their own partnerships within the group in order to develop their own Earth Force Team. They will be using the VMNH Earth Force team as a model. For updates on this group you can go to http://mhcearthforce.blogspot.com/ and see what they are up to.

August National Parks Awarness

To help support our National Parks, CNI has recognized the parks in the Martinsville- Henry County area. We interviewed two US Army Corps of Engineers, Danny and Susan Martin and the President of Friends of Philpot Linda Drage at Philpott Lake. Our goal was to spread awareness about Philpott Lake and the wonderful programs that they have.